


the blood dried on her boots

by manrei



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: CECELIA IS PRECIOUS AND UNDERAPPRECIATED AND I LOVE HER, F/M, ambiguous chaos?, haven't decided honestly, i hope you love her too, vigilante!cecelia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-12 14:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4483214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manrei/pseuds/manrei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you even know my name?" She asks, knowing not to expect an answer. </p><p>-<br/>Cecelia's been afraid her whole life. In time, she'll learn not to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. neither asleep or dead

**Author's Note:**

> I love Cecelia a lot and I like to think that Corvo inspired her to be braver in more ways than she let on. 
> 
>  (Just to make it less confusing, the parts written in past tense are flashback while the ones in the present take place in the...present.)  
> Also, this is a multi-chapter fic. I'll have the next one up soon!

_"The common folk, simple minded, selfish, but they can be kind."_

It was a line he had heard before. Dressed in robes that smell faintly of blood, the man listened to the unseen organ's voice. The woman in question was rather...unspectacular. She, like the others who had survived escaping the plague thus far, had the gaunt look of those who had seen death firsthand. Her cheeks were hollow, eyes slightly sunken in, and whatever mirth she had possessed before had been taken from the plague. Mostly. He gathered that she liked playing pranks on the rest of the Loyalists, much to their annoyance. It was all childish stuff: knocking on doors and then running away and putting tadpoles in the bathtub. Compared to the others, she was rather average, common, but through her timid nature, he could see her strength. Her desire to exceed the expectations put upon her. Intrigued, he watched as she cursed under her breath as she swept at the floor, making harsh scratches at the wood with a bristly broom.

"It's always me that has to do this," she muttered. "Me me me."

But what the Heart failed to realize is that a person like Cecelia, unlike the others who live in the Pits, can't afford to keep secrets. To the others with power such as Havelock, Martin, and Pendleton, a person whose motives can be easily seen is a great convenience. It's better that those who are transparent remain unseen as long as the ones with the coin and the uniform are making the important decisions. To those more perceptive than the former, the idea of a person who can blend in within a sea of people much like them is nothing short of terrifying.

*

_"The common woman. She fears the Abbey and the plague."_

"Hey. _Up there_ ," she nudges the bulge on the top bunk above her with her finger. Despite the heater in the corner running, the bunk room was still cold. It smelled like old cider and rat fur. A pale blue whale oil lamp popped and hissed in one corner.

"Up there," she whispers again.

"What?" Lydia groans, voice groggy. "What is it? I'm trying to sleep, here."

"I can't sleep again," she says. "Had a bad dream."

"Suck it up," the maid snaps. "Nothing's going to happen to someone who sweeps and complains all fucking day."

"It...it was the one with the rats again," she continues. "I was kicking rocks by the water until one squeaked. And then another and another until I was standing on a sea of them, trying to kick them off as they climbed onto me."

"It was just a dream," Lydia murmurs. "The only rats here are in the sewers."

"I guess you're right," Cecelia mumbles.

_"Mhm."_

She hears her roll over, probably into a position that's better to ignore her in - one with her pillow on her ear or something. But Cecelia doesn't mind. Despite Lydia's coarseness, she was the only person at the Hound Pits who was ever remotely nice to her. Sometimes, she'd do things like give her apricot tartlets taken from Pendleton's room when he'd be too drunk to notice or bump into Wallace when he was being especially grumpy. As the youngest and least educated person at the Pits, there was no reason for anyone to give her any special treatment and even so, she's grateful for Lydia.

Nights like this one aren't unusual to her. It's been months since she left the Flooded District and weeks since she's had a decent amount of sleep. Because of this, she can spend hours looking at the individual stitches sewn into the cloth of the thin hammock above her. There are hundreds, thousands. She's had whole nights devoted to herself counting them all by moonlight. It helps to calm her nerves, the monotony. And if that doesn't work, there's listening to the sounds of the people around her. Wallace, for example, grumbles in his sleep. Whenever he tosses and turns, she hears the unmistakable clink of empty bottles that had once stored sweet wine more expensive than everything she's ever owned - stolen from Pendleton's stash, of course. She knows that he's got more weight on his shoulders than his dainty fancy man steps let on. Despite her delicate demeanor, Callista snores like the hum of a boat motor. It isn't ladylike, for sure, but neither is the small knife strapped to her thigh.

Lastly, there’s Lydia. She mumbles. She talks about not wanting to kiss the men in her dreams but she kisses them anyway, giggling. It's such a contrast from the cranky maid she knows during the day. A happier woman with cider to drink, half-finished bar jokes to say (she always went quiet when it got to the punchline), and no plague or conspiracy to worry about. She reminded Cecelia of her older sister, a tall woman with locks as fiery as her personality. The last time she had seen her was when they had tried to get out of the Flooded District. One of the City Watch guards had been too "thorough" with her body search, which prompted her to call him and his mother a name and for him to rear back and punch her in the face in reply. Cecelia had cried at that moment, cradling her head in her lap while the guard looked between his glove, ripped from scraping against her front teeth and the stream of blood that ran down from her sister's left eye. They had both been taken kicking and screaming that day.

That...had been half a year ago. Cecelia hasn't been the same since. She keeps a small glass with three of her sister's teeth at the end of a cord that she wears under her shirt. It's a morbid relic to keep, but it's all she has of her. Sometimes they clink together and she can't help think about her smile. So she keeps busy. When she isn't counting thread or reminiscing the days when she and her sister would run across rooftops to crack eggs over unsuspecting guardsmen, she daydreams. And after her talk with Lydia, she can't help but think about what's going on under her and the things that had happened earlier.

There's a chain under the stairs that leads to the boiler room. Out of a combination of sheer curiosity and boredom, she had climbed down the rusted metal links and dropped onto the cool concrete. The room had been quiet, save for the chatter coming from above. It was cool, too, with a slight breeze coming from the spaces under the door across the room. It smelled faintly of rot. Once her eyes had adjusted to the light, she saw the old drums that had once held fermenting beer and the small shadow of an individual rat cleaning itself by a small set of stairs. For a few moments, she considered making this another option for hiding. Lydia had said that the door led to the sewer tunnels, which, to Cecelia, sounded like a great way to escape if all went to shit.

Carefully, she edged towards the door, making sure that it was only one rat that was doing the squeaking. Once she was about to wrap her hand around the knob, a mound of fur brushed her foot. She yelped, fear filling her veins like ice water, and fell onto her butt. A few seconds after she had gotten up and dusted herself free of any old cobwebs, she heard a low moan cut through the air.

"Uh, he- _hello?"_ She asked. "Is anyone there?"

She heard about Hatters and other grimy people making deals underground which, in hindsight, made it a pretty bad idea to make herself known like that. _Why'd you have to ask? You're going to get yourself killed._ She had seen men with breaths heavy with the stench of alcohol grab women far more built than her by the wrist and wrench them to some dark alley to do... _things_...all for the shine of a few coins. Out of the fear that froze her to the spot, she listened. The low moan came again. It was a low muffled wheeze that came closer with every second that passed. She could hear a distinct scratching, like the sound of a foot being dragged, and the hitch of something breathing through a throat covered in red phlegm. The shuffling and the groaning came closer until it erupted into a violent shriek. Fists slammed against the door. _Thud. Thud._ Blood was smeared across the grimy window as if it had pressed its wet cheeks against the glass for a closer look.

"Shit!"

She _ran._ Scrambled up the stairs and grabbed the chain, ignoring her stinging palms. How could she have been so stupid? Just because the district was abandoned didn't mean that there weren't any weepers. Fuck. The gritty rust sliced into the grazed flesh of her hand with each foot she got closer to the hole. Once she managed to lift herself out of it, she sprinted up the stairs and slammed the metal door open.

"Havelock!" She gasped, breathless. The military man, with his stern air of importance, eyed the her much in the way one regards a fly landing onto their meal.

"I've already eaten lunch, thank you," he said. He was flipping through a book of maps.

"It...uh," she started. "I heard something. D-down in the boiler room. In the basement."

"Uh _huh_ ," he said slowly. "And this something was important enough to burst into my quarters, uninvited, and interrupt me planning for our next attack? The day's just started, girl."

 _Girl._ After half a year of giving him his meals every single day, he didn't even remember her name.

"It was a weeper," she said, trying to hold back the disappointment from her voice. "I heard a weeper in the tunnels."

That got him. His eyes widened slightly in surprised. "A weeper," He said. "You're sure you heard one?"

"I was sweeping and I heard all these weird sounds coming from down there, like scratching and groaning," she said. It was a lie, but it wasn't like it would be safe to say that she was looking for a way to get out. "It was coming from something that was too big for a rat."

He took a pile of papers and straightened it out on his desk. "Thank you for bringing this to my attention," he said. "He's had a long night, but I'll have Corvo investigate the tunnels as soon as he wakes up."

"Okay, glad -"

"- and... _Miss?"_ He continued in that curt manner of his. She looked into his eyes. "Out of respect for my position as your superior, you will address me as 'sir' from this moment on. Nothing else."

"...sir," she made a nervous curtsy that was undoubtedly so bad that it would've given Wallace an ulcer. 

"Dismissed," he said, not looking up from the book. "Close the door on your way out. _Gently_ this time."

 _Fuckin' asshole._ Cheeks blazing, she rushed out of the admiral's quarters. That sort of treatment was expected, of course. She was the daughter of a man who had left before she could tell him to stay and of a woman who killed herself all because she was tired of not having enough to eat. Life was always going to treat her like shit and the people in it didn't look twice at shit. But why...when things had been that way for years, why did she want people to be nicer to her? _Because I'm stupid. Having someone treat me like a person has always been too much to ask._

Eyes blurry with tears, she made her way to the bar, but not before bumping into someone and hearing all sorts of things clatter to the ground.

"Fuck!" Lydia cursed, going down on her knees to gather the used forks and spoons. She shot Cecelia a glare hot enough to melt Tyvian ore. "Watch where you're going!"

"I'm sorry, I -" Cecelia stammered, her voice making that closed-up croaky hitch that happened whenever she was about to cry. Gods. "I didn't see."

Lydia's face softened at the sight of her, but not so much that it concealed the annoyance from her voice. "What happened this time?"

"My broom fell down into the cellar," she said. "I tried using the chain," she showed Lydia her skinned palms. "But I fell."

"You're so clumsy," Lydia said.

Cecelia bent down and reached for a spoon. "I can hel -"

"N- _ah!"_ Lydia barred her with her arm. "You've already caused enough damage as it is, and now you want to bloody the stuff we _eat with?"_

"Right," she said, edging back. "I'm sorry."

"There's a bottle of whisky under the empty keg," Lydia said, putting the utensils back onto the metal tray. "Wash your hands with some of it before you wrap them with gauze. Make sure you've got gloves on when you're back to work."

Cecelia nodded, pushing off the floor to get herself up. It wasn’t kindness, but it was better than nothing. She wiped the stray tears that had pooled at her eyes with the back of her hand and went to the bar. It was all she could do, anyway.

She was never one for whisky. It tasted like crap to her, but it was good for the nights she spent in that apartment not wanting to think about anything. The bottle was half-full when she had found it. She hoped that whatever germ-killing things were swimming in it was strong enough to kill stuff like Wallace's gingivitis. She tipped the bottle over the sink so that the amber liquid splashed against her ruined palm and rinsed the other hand, too.

"Ah - ah, fuck," she winced, biting hard on her lower lip. The scrapes were minor and would have made sweeping a drag, but the alcohol seared. It hurt. A lot. She wiped her eyes on her sleeves, ensuring that no one was going to see her cry. She wasn't weak, but why did she always find herself in situations that made her feel like it? Why did she feel so alone?

On her cot, tears gather around Cecelia's eyes. They're salty and they run hot down her cheeks and she tries her hardest not to make a sound. Her hands, now wrapped in gauze, sting. _You keep crying. It's been months. Aren't you used to this, yet?_ She keeps thinking about what happened next. How she used some of her week's ration of Piero's remedy to clot the blood. It only really worked for shallow wounds. 

When Corvo emerged from the tunnels unscathed but stained with blood that was not his own, Cecelia was elated. In all her years of living scared and thinking that nothing was going to change that, she saw someone who had faced the things she feared the most and had fought back. She remember running to him like a little girl, this man who could snap her neck in an instant and standing there in awe. "You went down there? With the weepers?” She asked, amazed. “You're the bravest man I know."

It was a strange thing to say to someone whom she had met less than a week ago, but Cecelia was not normally one for holding her tongue when things excited her. For a second, her cheeks flushed, and she hoped that what she had said wouldn't make things seem awkward. He had just woken up and was tired for sure and maybe he was grumpy, too. _It wasn't my place. Please don’t hate me,_ she thought. _I just...I don’t know what came over me._

But then he looked at her. His face was a bit harsh, what with the months he spent in prison aging him and all, and she was really expecting for him to scowl at her, but he didn't. Instead, the corners of his mouth quirked up a little into what she saw was a small smile. It softened his features considerably and her insides fluttered, surprised, until he looked away.


	2. a hound without teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She knows how to run, and she's very good at it.

" _All she wants is to lay herself down in the middle of Framling Street, and await death."_

 

She's going to run away from this place. Not today, but some day. This isn't a new thought and isn't something she hasn't done before. She ran away from her uncle, with his bloated fingers and blood-rimmed eyes, from the guardsman, and the city half-filled with water that smelled like rat shit and death. She's good at it, that's why. It's the only thing that's kept her lungs clear and her heart beating. 

Although she would never think of voicing this out loud, this whole staying with the Loyalists thing is just another way to run away from what's chasing her: the plague and her own fear of death, which were practically the same thing.  She wants to say that she's doing this for the greater good and that she's helping people like Havelock and Martin gain the power they need to make the city a better place. But the things that men like Havelock and Martin do don't exactly ease her conscience.  

 _"You don't exactly have many reasons to sightsee around here, do you?" She had seen him one night, the Overseer, lounging in a chair, flick the end of his smoldering cigar above a metal pan. "Something like that would have been nice for a man who's spent the last two days looking at Dunwall's_ fine _cobblestones."_

_"You're a man of faith, Martin," Havelock had said, squinting behind his glasses as he drew two lines on a yellowed map._

_"Indeed, sir, I am," he drawled, blowing a puff of gray smoke into the air. He gave a nervous, tray-holding Cecelia a detached once-over. "And as a man of faith, there's nothing better than seeing a woman on her knees...and praying."_

She shudders. She wants to believe that all this is being done for the right reasons, but the dreams of seas of rats chewing at her and powerful men letting miles of city die don't stop haunting her during the night. Besides, how can she say she's useful to this something this big when all she does is clean until the skin on her fingertips are rubbed raw? How can she say this when she isn't even _seen?_  She wants to say that being invisible is an advantage they don't have, but it gets so...tiring.

 _I feel like a ghost,_ she thinks.  _But at least people light candles for the dead._

The servants' quarters is empty. Wallace is always the first to leave, grumbling over the morning's argument between him and Lydia until he gets to the kitchen. Once he leaves, Lydia vents to Callista on their way to get the mops, calling him names that would've made an old whaler cry, and leaving Cecelia alone to replace the sheets. Wallace's sheets are thin and worn under her fingers. There are balls of lint that cluster in rough patches, stains too old for her to tell if it is old piss or blood - none of them his own, she hopes. _It's been so long since this has been soft._ It's a stupid chore, having to strip the beds, but it's one that's necessary. According to Piero, it is possible that any contact with bull rats, even if they were alone, could result in the contraction of the plague. Looking at the number of empty bunks, she understood why he'd come to such a theory. 

There used to be more of them.

Back then, when things were just getting started and everyone was getting settled, you could hear... _whistling._  In the mornings, in the hall. Lydia laughed. Callista hummed. Wallace even...tapped his feet at times when he'd be bent over a boiling pot. These were strange things that happened during such a dark time, but it gave the Pits an air of hope - like maybe they were going to achieve their goal and rid the city of the rats and the Empress would come back. The flowers would grow. People would realize that jellied eels in fact, tasted horrible and would resort to bigger, better things. They had felt safe from the plague on their tiny pub by the sea, all of them. 

There is a book sitting on the edge of one of the unused bunks.  _Whaler Songs,_ it says on the cover. Written in spindly cursive, it says on the inside flap, _"I found this while I was looking through my grandfather's belongings. I never told you this because I've always found your soft croons to be so endearing, but you've been getting the words wrong this whole time. It's truly a wonder that no one ever bothers to correct you, but you work at a pub, after all. They must all be too drunk to notice. Also, I...I miss you, Damien, and even though your work hours are long, I hope that every time you look at this, you think of me. Sing to me tonight, will you? Using the right lyrics this time. With love, Amanda."_

But that was before. No one's touched the damn thing ever since he slipped out a window a month before. _"He's a dead man," Lydia had said. "I loved the guy, but...that thing's gotta be haunted in some way."_  She wasn't wrong. Although the book made nearly all the servants regard it with a certain unease, it served as a reminder of just what the circumstances in the city were like and how they were all lucky to resist the desire to find the people they loved. There was also the matter of Darren, a young bartender who had caught the plague by getting bitten by a rat. By this logic, he must have been the biggest reason for the stringent cleansing. The bloodstains on his mattress had for the most part, faded, but no one could deny that they weren't there. 

At this moment, she's stuffed everyone's sheets into a basket. Except... _one._ She slips her hand under Callista's mattress and pulls at the fabric until mostly all of it's in her gloved fist. As she gives it one last tug, something a few feet away falls and makes a small _thud._ She pushes the cloth into the basket and sees what looks like a small belt with a sheath on the floor. She picks it up. _Huh._  The leather is cool to her skin and cracked in some areas from constant use. Carefully, she takes the handle and pulls the knife from its sheath. It's simple - a regular six-inch hunting knife. The blade is shiny. Sharp and light. Tyvian, probably. But what did she know about this stuff, anyway?  _It looks...lethal._

"What are you doing?"

Cecelia startles and the strap drops. Her eyes dart to find Callista, face scrunched up in a scowl, staring daggers at her.

"I'm sorry, I -" She bends down to pick it up. "I was taking the sheets off and it, um, it fell out."

Callista's face softens. _She really is beautiful...when she isn't frowning or scowling all the time._  "Oh," she says, taking the strap out of her hands. "I apologize. I must have forgotten it when Lydia slapped Wallace with her sock."

Cecelia nods. "Yeah. It's alright."

"Please," Callista's hand squeezes the sheath. Her eyes are pleading. "You must understand. Havelock and Martin can't -"

"I understand," she replies. "I - I won't tell them. This happened before, remember?"

She nods. "Yes. You of all people should know - with the city as it is, running...just isn't enough anymore."

"Yeah," Cecelia says. "I get that. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone."

"Thank you," she says, giving her a small, warm smile. It feels strange for Cecelia to see that, but she figures it's probably because most of them haven't been given a reason to genuinely smile in some time. "I am glad that I can trust you."

 _Trust._ Such a unusual word. She's heard it used several times over the course of her life.  _"Trust me, I'm_ fine, _" her uncle had said before coughing blood into his handkerchief. "We are sworn to ensure your safety and well-being," the guardsman said, stretching his hand out to help the shivering woman onto the train. "Trust me when I say that you'll be treated by only the best and the brightest of the Academy."_

It's such an easy word to misuse. But in this case, she thinks nothing of it. _It's harmless,_ she thinks to herself.  _She's just happy you did her a favor._

"It's no problem," she says, flashing her a smile that she hopes at the very least looked amiable.  

*

With her hands firmly grasping the re-purposed paddle, she stirs. The servants' sheets slosh around in a barrel filled with a mixture of cold water and whale soap. As per instructions, she does what she can to ensure that she does not make any contact with anything that hasn't been washed thoroughly.  The first has Lydia’s, hers, Callista’s, and Wallace’s sheets; with the second containing Martin’s, Havelock’s, and Pendleton (although Pendleton did insist on having a separate barrel, there were simply not enough paddles to accommodate); and in the third, Corvo’s, which, went without saying was the one that needed the most care. Piero washed his own, insisting that he run tests every morning for any anomalies. It's a cold morning, but after riling three loads of cloth for an hour, sweat is already beginning to run down her hot cheeks.

"Fuck," she collapses against a rack of barrels. The wine storage doesn’t smell like wine so much as old wood and dust. Huffing, she peels off her jacket and unbuttons her shirt, thinking about how many more times she’s going to have to churn before her arms fall off. The air is icy, and the sensation of the sweat cooling on her exposed cheeks and neck makes her shiver. She massages her right arm, squeezing the sore muscles until they feel well enough to move again. Leaning her head on a barrel, she looks up at the still-dark sky through the grimy ceiling windows. _If anyone asks, they’re soaking._

Tiring, solitary work such as this usually gave her the opportunity to muse about her contingency plans and this time was no different. I _f all else fails - apartment. If I can’t make it, then I can hide in the tunnels since Corvo wiped out the weepers. I’ll...I’ll need to make sure I have extra remedies on hand in case that happens. But what will I do afterward?_

From her pocket, she produced an old handkerchief that once had the image of a rose as red as any noblewoman’s lipstick and dragged it across her forehead.  _What...will I do?_  She looks at her hands. _Is there anything left?_ Her palms are calloused from labor, but her knuckles are just as soft as they were the moment she entered the Pits. _“With the city as it is...running just isn’t enough anymore.”_   She thinks about the glint of the blade and its eerie reasons for its necessity. She thinks of Corvo emerging from the chute, a barrel of soapy water tinged pink because of reasons nobody wants to ask, and, ultimately, herself. 

“Who are you kidding?” She says to no one in particular, bring her legs closer to her body by curling her arms around them. “I can’t, I can’t _fight.”_

Without meaning to, she remembers a moment she’d been trying to suppress ever since she ran that first time. She winces at the memory of her uncle, the walking corpse of sickly blue and swollen skin lumbering towards her and her sister. _“Stay behind me,”_ the taller woman had said before plunging the kitchen knife deep into his chest, infected blood spattering her face when she had pulled it out. _Death._ It seemed like her thoughts would never be free of it. 

She sighs. "It's _just_...you can't win." From her coat, she fishes out a metal flask, unscrews its lid, and tips it so that the bitter, burning liquid inside falls across her tongue and down her throat. "You just end up dead, anyway, wrapped in a cloth casket on top of dozens of bodies and under hundreds more at the end of a street with a name that no one is alive to say." She pauses before capping it. "Besides..." 

Tears threaten to well up in her eyes. She doesn't want to think about the times she felt like running was of no use and just how _good_ it would feel to set herself up on the side of an empty street with the most expensive bottle of wine she could buy.  At least then her last moments wouldn't consist of licking thick river brine off her teeth and hoping she didn't catch a worm. In death, the rats would bite at her stiff skin, gnaw open her veins, and by then, no one would be able to tell where her and the last dregs of a bittersweet signing off would end. It makes her tired just trying to block it out.  _It's no use._

“I’m not brave,” she says before getting up to finish washing the sheets.

*

"Are you going to insist on standing there and letting these go cold, or are you actually going to move?"

"Right, sorry." She tries her best to maneuver with the tray with a bowl of whale chowder and two slices of Dark Bread in her hands. Callista and Lydia take their tray to serve with expert grace. Cecelia's steps, on the other hand, are small and careful. In her past life, she couldn't handle bringing a bowl of soup from one end of the room to the other without it sloshing over. How could anyone expect her to carry a whole breakfast set across the Pits without fucking it up? Wallace leers at her, face red from having to stand in front of steaming pots for two hours.

"Go on," he says.

"Yes," she says, walking faster as she gets the hang of carrying heavy, spillable items with arms that feel like jellied eels. _Outsider's_ Feet _, don't let me fall._

She's so tired of all this. Of course, her past life hadn't been anything glamorous, but at least people knew her name. She had been happy, content. There were more days she looked forward to waking up to than those she'd spend sleeping in. In this period of time, either of those actions would be considered a luxury.

The hallway is cold and quiet save for the soft steps of those who are already awake. She sees Callista carrying two trays and using her foot to slide open the metal door to Havelock's room.

"Callista - _hello,"_ she hears a sleepy Martin say in a voice that is too warm, too _welcoming,_  to be casual. It sends a familiar crawling feeling on her skin. 

"Good morning," Callista greets. Her own voice, Cecelia notices, taking on just the faintest sense of tightness.

 _Running isn't enough._ Her mind flicks back to the morning; seeing gang members with bottles strapped to their belts; and her sister, ready to kill their uncle before he killed them both. _You must understand._ It is in that moment, that she does.  

*

“Breakfast,” she says, placing the tray on the worktable. Piero’s workshop smells like hot whale oil and gunpowder. It looks like the aftermath of a busy mind: schematics of upgrades askew on work tables; unfinished bolts and glass capsules half-full of bright liquid scattered on shelves; and tea rings staining the tarnished wood. The inventor himself is now filling an empty vial with his remedy, squinting at the small stream the until the meniscus is just under the lip of the glass. She knows that they're the week's rations and that she should leave before interrupting something so important, but she doesn't.

“Thank you,” he says, not looking away from his work.

She lingers for a few seconds, taking in the inventory of the shop’s first floor. There are a couple of Rewire tools stocked in the shelves along with a Springrazor in the cubby beneath them. Nasty things, but…they could prove to be useful when the time came. It’s not like she knew, anyway. In her experience, she had only seen guardsmen use them for faulty circuits and killing rats. Finally, her eyes fall on a crossbow beside his cup of tea. It's beautiful. 

“Excuse me,” she says. “What’s that for?”

“What?” He seals the vial and then follows her finger to the contraption. “That...is a prototype of Corvo’s current bow. It was perfect until I was informed that his hands were too big for the grip." 

“I’ll buy it,” she says, immediately regretting it. _Are you crazy?_ She thinks. _After all this time spent laying low and being ignored, being_ safe _, now is the time you want to draw attention to yourself?_ But it seems too late to take it back, now. 

“What?” He chuckles. “You'll forgive me for asking, but what are you going to do with such an item? I do not presume that the Admiral would like the idea of one of his subordinates possessing a weapon.”

 _Subordinates?_ Although she doesn’t like admitting it, she once had feelings for Piero. He was much older, yes, and not that attractive, but he was intelligent, _driven_. He knew how the world worked and how things came to be. There was a time she dreamed of having the privilege to glimpse into the labyrinth of his mind and seeing what he planned on bringing forth into the world. It was in that way she had thought him to be godlike. But at the end of the day, despite his brilliance, his unwarranted bluntness really made him out to be an asshole at times. Like right now. 

"I need it," she says. "For protection." It's not a lie, but at the same time, she's not sure if it's going to get what she wants. 

He chuckles. "You do realize that we are in the company of two men both skilled in marksmanship along with another one trained in the art of killing? I do not think that the prospect of anything capable of harming us would be able to make it that far." He lifts another empty vial from a box at his feet and proceeds to fill it. It's his way of telling her that he thinks their conversation is done, but she can't take that.

"But, the weepers from yesterday," she presses on. "They were...walking around in the tunnels for who knows how long and one of them could've gotten it into their heads that there were... _ways_ into the pub. Why is me wanting something to protect myself with so hard to understand?"

With his pointer and middle finger, he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He sighs. "I understand your persistence, I do, believe me, but you must also understand that the consequences of anyone else other than those in charge and Corvo having such an lethal item might incite unwarranted... _chaos._ Say that I do sell it to you and you end up injuring yourself or someone else. The fault would eventually be linked to me and I would be accused of contributing to said injuries. The importance of my opinion to the cause would depreciate and conflicts between the others would surely ensue, don't you think?"

The blood begins to rush to her cheeks. If there's anything she's sick and tired of, it's people patronizing her. Granted, he did raise good points. Unlike her, Piero was important to the Loyalists. He was what provided Corvo with the tools he needed to execute his missions and he had developed and sold a way to treat the plague while all she did was make beds, clean, and set out food.

She looks at Piero: brilliant, inventive, genius Piero. But also...tired. There are purple patches reminiscent of bruises under his eyes and the wrinkles on his face always made it seem like he was perpetually squinting. In all the months she's been here, she's never known him to have a full night's of sleep. And when he does manages to sleep, she hears him mumbling as she puts away the tray from the night before. She feels sorry for him. He's exhausted (about a number of things, she's sure), but she can't let him off like this. It's something she needs. 

"If you don't mind," he says, closing off the glass tube and reaching for another to put under the spigot. "I'd like to focus on readying this batch by noon."

"I..." She says. _C'mon. Spit it out, Cecelia. Spit it out._ "I know what you see through that keyhole in the servant's quarters during the afternoon." _By the Void, you couldn't have handled that with, I dunno, more grace?_

A dribble of liquid, syrupy and blue, leaks from the spout on the wall and onto his hand. His mouth goes slack. “I - _uh_ , I _don’t_ -”

In all honesty, she is just as surprised as he is. 

“C’mon,” she says. _You have no idea what the Void you are doing, but...roll with it. Just...goad him on._

“Eight hundred,” he manages to gasp out. A bead of sweat runs down from his temple.

“Too high,” she says, because it is. She only had around six hundred on her. “Six hundred.”

“That’s - that’s too low,” he stammers. “What do you think I am, some common blacksmith? This is specially crafted."

“Five-fifty,” she replies. “Or I tell her after I leave.”

He glares at her, eyebrows knitting together in a scowl. “Seven-fifty.”

“I’m not going any higher,” she says. “Five-fifty.”

For a moment, he regards her in the way a guardsman reacts to a rat. Hate. Disdain. There was so much irritation that flared in his eyes and in that moment, she fears that she’ll lose whatever courage had gotten her this far. In the end, he sighs, pushes up his glasses once again with a finger that is still dripping with blue, and sets the bow on the table in front of her. She unties the pouch from her waist and dips her hands in. The coins are cool against her skin and they clink together in a way that only makes her feel more accomplished. She grabs a handful and opens her palm to let them pour into a pile. They spend the next few minutes counting.

“You’ll need bolts,” he murmurs, getting up from his seat to retrieve an arrow holder full of them. “Do you still have enough to afford them?"

“Yeah,” she takes out more, her sack noticeably lighter than it was a few minutes before. It pains her - she’d been saving it all for months, for food, but it’s already been done.

Once the holder and crossbow are in her hands, Piero gives her a long look.

“These are not toys,” he says. “Whatever you’re planning on doing, try to keep it out of the Admiral’s and Martin’s sight or there will be...complications. On your part.” He gets a length of black cloth and drapes it over her arms. “Please, just...refrain from attracting any unnecessary attention." 

“Right,” she says, trying to hide the excitement from her voice. The equipment is lighter than it looked (which isn’t a surprise considering that mobility is something that someone like Corvo needs) and she’s silently grateful that she doesn’t have to be all muscled to handle it. "Thanks."

"Make sure not to poke your eyes out or anything while you use it," he says as she exits the workshop.

"Right," she says, tying the cloth in a way to make the parcel seem as harmless as possible. She begins the walk to her apartment. Butterflies flutter in her belly. She hugs the bundle to herself like it's a child. She knows that she should be happy, relieved. There is something she has that she can use to protect herself with. In those brief moments, she had summoned the courage to fight for something she wanted. But with the arrows poking into her chest, the cold realization of just what the contraption she's purchased can do to flesh, to a _life_ , can't help but make her feel...afraid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What can I say? Cecelia's just one of those people who are personally offended by outrageous prices. 
> 
> Also, Darren, Damien and Amanda are not OCs....technically. You can find Damien and Amanda in the Sewers at one point early in the game. Darren is the guy on the wall at the end of the crumbling street in Clavering. I just thought it'd be interesting to add them in using my headcanons. 
> 
> (I'm really sorry that it took kinda long for me to post this chapter! I had some real life stuff to take care of and it's all been putting a damper on things.)


	3. sleepwalker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On most nights, it's just hard to sleep.

_"She can hold her drink as well as any man."_  
  


“Come on,” she breathes, gritting her teeth against the icy air. “You can do this.”

Of course, she was just saying that to herself. She wasn’t Corvo, who probably spent years learning how to kill a man in every way imaginable.  Even though she didn’t see him do it, she figured that that was how he took care of those weepers so quickly. She wasn’t Havelock or Martin who weren’t as lethal as the former Lord Protector, but lethal all the same. Unfortunately, she was just Cecelia. Normal, harmless Cecelia who survived this far by being invisible and unremarkable.

Loading the crossbow, she finds out, is the easy part. And even though she’s currently shit at firing her weapon, she discovers a new feeling. She can’t quite put her finger on it, but in the moment before she pulls the trigger, she feels a vibrating sense of exhilaration. Almost excited, almost invincible. Perhaps it was the trickster being thrilled over having such a dangerous secret in her hands and not getting caught, or maybe it was just her being glad that she wasn’t as defenseless as before.    

She tightens her grip on the bow’s handle, wincing as it presses into her still-raw palm. She flinches when the bolt shoots out of its resting place to sink into the body of a salvaged mattress. From where she was standing, she could see that it had hit nowhere near the circles she had painted onto the fabric. With a sigh, she reloads her weapon. _Just do it. Just do it once,_ she thinks, almost willing the arrow to. _I spent good money on you._ She shoots the next one and watches it miss.

“Fucking waste of my time,” she curses. “It’s a waste!” She throws her hands up in the air. “Just like everything I do.” 

She falls to the ground and lies down, arms and legs splayed out on the soil and gravel, not caring about how dirty her clothes will be once she gets back up. The sky, as it always is during this time of the year, is a roiling sea of gray thunderheads illuminated by the glow of a bright moon. If she stared long enough, the clouds would move with the wind and make way for glimpses of the blue-black sky underneath, glittering with a smattering of stars.

* * *

 

_“That’s the Great Whale. They say that its eye will always point north,” her sister said, pointing at the sky. The air was cold and sharp this high up.  “Can you see it?”_

_“Yeah,” she said, squinting at what looked to be just a bunch of stars. “I think?”_

_“C’mon,” an elbow nudged her. “Are you even looking?”  
_

* * *

 

It was easy to reminisce, to leave the present if not for a little while. Escape was something that was always appealing to her, no matter the method. She looked at the sky and began to imagine a sea of stars filling the sky. Her sister once told her that during a certain time around the coasts of Pandyssia, the waters would glow when touched. Cecelia pictured something similar happening in the sky: a silvery, sparkling tide sweeping through the expanse of the blackness. It would pour onto the earth, she decided. The clouds would swell and burst and the celestial tide would teem down on the land and the islands would flood and the rats would drown and the black water would turn darker from the blood of the infected, but only for a moment before being swept away. At first, Callista and the others would try to bail the water out with buckets and yell out for more ways to contain the situation, but the wooden floor would swell and the salt and stars would come in despite their efforts. And as for her, she would let the froth take her. The water would be cold, she imagined. It would lap at her skin and decide to lift her from the ground. Only then would she be able to float in peace until a wave would crash over her, filling her mouth with icy brine and stars that tore at her throat like glass and - 

“I need to keep trying,” she says, getting up. It was only a couple hours after bed call and it would be a few more minutes before she’d throw the damned bow to the ground and snap it under her boot. But it wasn’t like she could get any worse than she already was. 

Taking a deep breath, she narrows her eyes at the target - a circle on the upper right-hand corner of the mattress. She tried not to focus on the stiffness in her hand, or how the bolt trembled slightly in her grip. _You’ve never hesitated to new stuff before,_ she thought. _Why are you now?_ Without thinking, she squeezed the trigger and let the arrow fly. A few seconds later, she saw that it had buried itself at the edge of the circle. Close. Not close enough. But close. 

“Holy shit,” she gasped. “Yes!” 

But before she could pump her arms into the air for her half-victory, she froze at the sound of a voice calling into the night.   

“Hello?” Ice rushed down her spine. 

 _Shit shit shit._ She slid the remaining bolts she had left into her quiver and carefully wrapped it in her handkerchief. Discovery was death. What would Havelock decide to do to her if he ever were to find out that she had in her possession a weapon capable of performing assassinations? Definitely not anything good. It wasn’t like she was a key component of the Loyalists’ cause nor did being fired seem like it was something they would do to cut off loose ends. She tucked her quiver and crossbow into her inside pockets of her blazer and hoped that the bulges weren’t noticeable. 

The light was coming from, strangely, underneath a pile of boats. As she got closer, she saw that someone was sticking their head outside the entrance of the hovel. 

“Hello?” The lamp near the shack illuminated the grizzled face of the man holding it. Cecelia exhaled, relieved it wasn’t anyone else. 

“Is anyone else there? I see you have a lamp, too.” 

 _Be calm,_ she thinks as she approached the shack. _Don’t be weird._  

“Sorry,” she says. 

Samuel narrowed his eyes and seemed to relax when he realize it wasn’t some suspicious watchman who decided to slip past the barrier. Cecelia knew that they’ve had to deal with a couple of nosy ones before. Havelock had ordered her to get rid of some “old stains” in the brewery, but she had known better. The trail of rust had led to the back exit. 

The boatman smiles in greeting. He has kind eyes, she notes.  “And here I thought I was hearing things,” he says. 

“No,” she replies, trying her best to offer a reassuring smile of her own. “Just me.” 

“Um.” The boatman gestured towards the inside of the shack. “It’s pretty cold out. Would you like to come inside for a bit?” 

She pauses, her mind going over all the scenarios concerning why going into a near-stranger’s quarters would not be a good thing in the slightest. But this wasn’t Overseer Martin, who lusted after the pretty Callista, or Treavor Pendleton, who frequented The Golden Cat, extending the invitation. This was Samuel, the man Lydia proclaimed as “more gentle tide and canvas sail than man”.

She nods. “If you don't mind,” she says.

“Not at all,” he replies, scooting himself to the far end of the small room and placing his lamp beside him. “Here. Lemme make some space for you. It’s a little messy,  but that’s because I ain’t accustomed to having guests over.” 

“It’s alright.”   

The inside of the hovel was nothing much to talk about. There was a mattress pushed off to the side that Samuel was sitting on and a few cans of food scattered on the floor. It wasn’t posh, but it was homey. She decided she liked it, and appreciated the little warmth that the lamp offered. 

“You’re...that serving girl, aren’t you?” Her host inquired. “Sylvia, was it?” 

“Cecelia,” she replied, failing to mask the tightness in her voice. 

He must have noticed because he began to wave his hands in apology. “Oh no,” he said. “Please don’t be offended. I’m terrible at names. When Havelock was doing introductions, he went through everyone’s names so fast that I could only catch his and Pendleton’s.” 

She relaxed, but only slightly. Feeling insignificant, even if it was only for a moment, was something that would always sting. 

“But I remember you,” he said. “Yeah, I do.” 

“From...serving you lunch?” She asked. From what she could recall, that was the only form of contact they would ever make. 

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “It was a while back, but I remember that you were the one who stole all those pastries.” 

At this, Cecelia clapped a hand over her mouth. “Wait,” she said, horrified. “How - how did you know that was me?” 

“Well.” He put a hand on his chin and rubbed at his beard absentmindedly. “Right before that big fella started to holler about the missing tartlets, I saw you rush out of the kitchen with a burlap sack in your arms and crumbs on your face while I was on my way to Havelock’s office.”

“You aren’t….you aren’t going to tell them, are you?” She was going to have to go to her apartment, gather her things, run. There was no place for a traitor at the Pits, especially someone who had stolen Havelock’s favorite dish  just to spite the stuck-up cook.

At the look on her face, Samuel let out a big, hearty laugh. “That prank was pretty funny, I’ll have to admit. If you can spare me a blanket tomorrow,” he pantomimed pinching his mouth closed. “My lips will be sealed.”

Her eyes widened. She shook her head. “That’s it?” She asked. There would be no running the next day, then. “I’ll...I’ll see what I can do,” she said. 

“So,” Samuel began, after a few moments of silence. “I’m guessing you couldn’t sleep, huh?” 

“Yeah,” she said, thinking about how she had just been shooting arrows at a mattress just minutes before. “Something like that.”

“Yep. I can understand that,” he said. “I guess it can be hard to relax when there are people dying not even a mile away from you.” To that, she nodded solemnly.

Talking about what was happening in the city around them was the unspoken taboo of the members of their little rebel group. Focusing on the bad only distracted the mind from the cause. And the cause was everything. Thinking that maybe they were working for something great, something that would maybe earn them a line in the history books and get them out of the hellish world that was the present was the only barrier that separated them from the people with cheeks wet with their own blood. Of course, references to the past were inevitable. The Loyalists, especially, the servile members did not normally speak about what life was like for them before, but Cecelia knew that they wanted to. It was only human nature, she supposed, to want to be remembered.

After a few moments of awkward silence, Samuel brushed back his salt and pepper hair with his hand and then turned around to reach for a metal carafe and mug.

“I seem to have forgotten my manners. Do you want some tea?”

“No thank you,” she replied.

“I know it’s hard,” he said, pouring the brown liquid into his cup. “I can’t sleep most nights, either. But I think...by the end of all this, things will get better. Especially with Corvo around.”

Cecelia nodded, remembering the day he had emerged from the sewers. “He seems...good.”

“He is,” Samuel agreed. “It’s a shame, though. How lonely he is.”

“Lonely?” She asked. “What do you mean?”   _How is that even possible?_ She thought. _People have been swarming him about missions to do for about a week, now._

“Oh, you know,” the boatman replied. He took a sip from his mug, winced, and continued. “Being locked up for that amount of time...has to do things to you. I mean, think about it. He’s probably had more than enough time to think about what happened that day, and for him to come out of that hellhole and everything that happened since the Empress’ death…” At this point in time, he tipped the mug over so that he could finish his tea. “It’s just a miracle he hasn’t gone mad. But that’s just my take on the situation. I’m no philosopher.”  

“Huh,” she said. “I guess I never thought about that.”

“So,” he went on. “If you don’t mind an old sailor’s curiosity, what do you plan on doing once after all of this is done?”

She took a piece of her blazer and began to rub it between her fingers. It was one thing to not be able to talk about the past, but the future was something else entirely. It was foreign, frightening.

“Well,” she said. “I’d like to run the pub, if Farley would let me. There’d be no fights, though. I like dogs.” Samuel smiled like that. “It’s either that or,” she continued. “I go somewhere...else. I’ve lived in Gristol my whole life. I think it’d be nice to go to at least one of the isles. Maybe buy a cottage in the country and finally get some sleep.”  

“Well,” the boatman replied. “It’s tough in Morley, but the people are nice. Tyvia’s a bit prissy for my taste, but they’ve got beautiful cities. And Serkonos has good food, lovely weather. Won’t have you rubbing your hands together n’ all that.”

“I’ll take you up on that.” She looked up at him. “Wh-what do you want to do?” 

He poured himself another cup. “What I’ve always done,” he said. “Sail. There are places out there that I haven’t seen yet.” 

A yawn stretched his mouth. “Well, I think I may be getting a little sleepy,” he said. “Would you mind if we had another talk sometime soon? I’ve got a whole lot of maps I could show you if you’re interested in what else is out there.” 

“Oh,” Cecelia said, feeling tired and a bit sad over having to end the conversation. “Yeah, sure.” 

As she was making her way out of the crawl space, her crossbow fell out of her pocket and onto the ground. Before she could grab it, Samuel commented, “Hmm, looks a bit small for Corvo. Yours?” 

“Please,” she said, almost begging. “Don’t tell Havelock.” 

He scrunches up his face, confused. “It wouldn’t be right if I did. I myself keep a pistol with me just in case. You’ve got to do whatever it takes to keep yourself safe these days.”

She stood up. Samuel picked up the bow and extended it to her. “Stay safe, Cecelia. It was really nice talking to you.”

“You too.” She took the bow. “Thank you.”

*

After she collected the rest of the bolts, which, thankfully, weren’t broken, she pushed her target mattress to the side and went back to the pub. 

Sometimes, on the nights she would spend scrubbing the stains from the floor or wiping the counter with a wet towel, she would wonder what The Hound Pits had been like...before. In the past, she used to occasionally frequent a pub called The Cracked Anchor. It was mostly because it was fun to spite belligerent men who had dared to question her constitution by winning drink-offs. She remembered the feeling of wiping her mouth of beer foam and triumphantly looking at her dazed opponent in the eye, laughing whenever the regulars who knew her would slip a few coin into her palm for the show, and wincing when her sister would drag her out of there by the ear. She had a steel belly, the patrons would say. “You’re a dead girl,” her sister would scold. “What’s Uncle going to say once he finds out that you were the one who caused his client’s hangover?”

She liked to think that The Hound Pits had been lively and that there were hardly any days in which the bar stools or booths were empty and that the beer flowed pure and crisp out of the tap instead of diluted with river water. Maybe there had been laughter - the kind that had you curling over in your seat and slapping the back of the person next to you. She liked to think that it was a loud, joyous place before it was ever forced into silence.

With great care, she ascended the stairs, making sure that her steps were slow and quiet. There was this one step that was cracked and prone to creaking that she had to watch out for. Once she slipped through the door of the servants’ quarters, she made her way to her bed, where she hid her things in the space between her mattress and the floorboard. She planned to take them to a more secure location in the morning.

As she was taking off her shoes and jacket, she saw Lydia stir.

“I can’t sleep,” she said. “Corvo’s been making all kinds of noise. Maybe nightmares. Check on him, will you?”

It wasn’t like she could reject an order. “Okay,” she said.

“Thanks,” Lydia murmured, shifting to lie on her other side.

 

* * *

 

  _“Milk and honey,” her uncle said as he swirled a spoon in a jar. “That’s what you need.” She watched as he tipped the spoon over the mug and let the thick amber liquid flow into it._

_“You know, your mother had trouble sleeping, too. Our parents gave her all kinds of terrible-tasting elixirs. She hated them. Every time she was told to take a dose, she’d pour a little into a potted on her nightstand. It was a fern, I believe.” Cecelia, aged nine, rubbed at her eyes._

_She remembered her mother. A tall, bold woman with hair as red as hers and freckles on her cheeks as well. When she was younger, they would go on walks along with her sister in the summer. Back in those days, they’d lick melted ice milk from their fingers while they dangled their legs over the water. She used to be an accountant for the Boyle family, she remembered, before the fever had taken her. As for her father, Uncle Carter would sometimes comment how it was a wonder that such a gentle man would be the one to temper a fire like Lucille._

_“Our parents tried everything,” he said. “Until they found that she took to this best.” He offered the mug to her, which she held with both hands. She brought the rim of it to her mouth and closed her eyes, taking in the taste of sweet cream, honey, and warmth._

* * *

 

 “Here’s hoping he likes sweet stuff,” she said, stirring the now-sugary ox milk. When she came to the doorway, she caught a glimpse of him curled up on his side, clad in a white undershirt and loose pants.

“Corvo?” She let go of the spoon, which made a soft clink when it hit the mug.

She had only closed her eyes just for a second when she opened them to find the bed empty and a cold blade pressed to her throat. Her fingers squeezed the mug’s handle tightly. _What…?_ She knew that there was something strange about him. She once heard the Overseer, Martin, talk about it once while she was serving lunch.

 

* * *

 

 _“There’s something about our_   _dear_ Corvo, _Admiral,” he said, swirling the ice in his glass. “My sword hums when I’m near him.”_

 

_“I think you may be looking too much into him, Martin,” Havelock replied. “His skills have done our cause well.”_

 

 _The ice clinked against each other. “Oh, I don’t doubt he’s done us well,” Martin drawled. “I’m just saying that his aptitude seems almost..._ inhuman.”

* * *

 

“Please don’t kill me,” she said, surprised that she didn’t stutter. But still, she was afraid. She closed her eyes, hoping that if he did decide to end her, that it be painless. For a moment, she hoped that whoever was going to mop her up later that they do it with the cleaning solution in the bottle with the chipped mouth, or there would be a stain.

After a breath, she felt the edge leave her skin. She opened her eyes and turned around to face him.

“The others were...worried,” she said. “They sent me to check up on you.” It was in that moment that she realized just how close to death she had been. The thickness of the coat he’d wear obscured his physique. The undershirt hung loosely from arms corded with muscle and lined with silvery scars. And there, just under his hair, was the burn mark he received from Coldridge, still pink and angry. “I-I,” she stuttered. “I just wanted to see if you were okay.”

He was staring at her, but it felt like he wasn’t staring so much as trying to process that she was there. There was something...strange about his eyes, too. Something not right.

“But you’re okay,” she said. “And...I’m sorry for bothering you.” She moved past him to get back to the stairs.

“Wait,” he said softly.

For a moment, she hesitated. She wanted to obey, _had to,_ but the hot adrenaline pumping through her veins made it hard to think clearly.

She gave him a glance over her shoulder. “I hope you sleep well tonight,” she said. And kept walking.

 *

In the kitchen, she tipped the mug over the sink and watched the milk eddy down into the drain. Once she was back in her bed, she pressed her fingers to her neck, where she felt the abnormal ridge of a thin, bloodless line of cut skin.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look...I know. I know it's been a year since I updated this thing, but I have my reasons! I can explain! My original file got corrupt a while back and I just didn't have the energy to retype everything. I did, however, find my old outline for the fic, so I just based my rewrite off of that. I'm really sorry. :( 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter, though! And I really appreciate all the feedback you've given me. :)


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